"Douglas Holmes" wrote in message
news:jz1Kf.3005$GQ.2768@trnddc03...
The Stick IMO has the potential to kill or seriously harm this whole
program.
Even more then before since it now needs both an unflown larger solid
and a brand new upper stage of which the largest part is an engine
that has yet to be built or tested.

To be fair, the J-2S has been built and tested, but that was literally
decades ago:

http://www.astronautix.com/engines/j2s.htm

The most recent notes (from the above web page) on this engine a

It was estimated by ATK Thiokol in 2005 that restarting the J-2S
program,
including engine fabrication, design and reliability verification,
certification, and production, would require four years. Although no
J-2S
tooling was known to exist, modern soft tooling could be developed
quickly and less expensively than the original hard tooling. There was
an
existing manufacturing and supplier network in place to support a J-2S
restart.
All the while NASA keeps saying the reason to use it is that it is
a proven system. It is this kind of logic that can kill astronauts.

I doubt that, given the J-2S lineage, but it certainly has the potential to
increase development time and cost for The Stick if any development problems
are encountered.

Jeff
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